I think social media plus lots of affiliates is doing in this message board.

Regarding the larger death of message boards I find it a shame. It's the triumph of "easy" over "better". I'm a member of the Starting Strongman Facebook group and it's got good stuff but since a FaceBook page is nearly unsearchable all the great questions and answers quickly become almost unfindable.

This message board has been great because I can go back and see what people have been posting about something going back months or years. I can also look back at my own stuff years back. What did I say my resting heart rate was in 2010? Exactly how much progress did I make when I did Starting Strength? Not only did I get to talk about that then, but I can look it up now.

Message boards in general are pretty much dying and it is due to social media. I personally think it stinks simply because the message boards do allow for a more specific focus and the ability to weed out the b.s.

The site is extremely active, look at the number of non members on at any one point in time. It's the stop in sign up that's causing the drop in posts. Many reasons they've done this, most of them reasonable. But yes, I loved this board back in the day, and learnt a hell of a lot.

How about the fact there are 12,000+ affiliates? When I found the CrossFit in early 2010 there were 2 small affiliate about 15 miles away, combined they might have had 150 members.

Today there are 7 large gyms in that area plus lots of small/garage gyms. People get information from coaches in those affiliates not the board. Gyms like Outlaw, Invictus, Nor Cal and CFNE are driving the research these days and posting it on their own websites. Often for sale.

Simply put CrossFit grew up. I think what we miss was that great adolescence period. It was exciting, innovative, sometimes stupid (ever done "Manion"). Many of us had finally found what we had been looking for in a fitness program.

It will never go back to what it was. The genie is out of the bottle. While we may miss it, millions of people are better off because of this growing up.

It's because they removed the original exercises & demos videos a couple of years ago! I think you're right, the newbs see their own gyms as a reputable source for information and community so they don't come here as often or at all. I myself am also an example of someone who has done that very thing. We have several blogs and community pages in my gym let alone add to that the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. sometimes it's just too much to keep up with!

I'm a little shocked I didn't see this mentioned in this thread - but you guys want content extremely similar to what you are getting here - www.reddit.com/r/crossfit (Proceed at your own risk, *usually WFS* but sometimes not, depending on the time of day/week/month) - it's similar to a message board, mostly self-moderated.

Food for thought, I've posted identical posts both here and there, and MOST of the time, I get about 10 times more responses there than I get here.

Bunches of people already have accounts there, so it's easy to just drop into the CrossFit section and have a chat!